


Seventeen and Counting

by MuseofWriting



Series: Per Aspera Ad Astra [2]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Birthday, Companion Piece, Fluff, Gen, Hunk's Cooking, Like a Teeny Bit, also low key background hance?, that ship is sneaking up on me, there's some background klance
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-29
Updated: 2017-07-29
Packaged: 2018-12-08 06:48:48
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11641188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MuseofWriting/pseuds/MuseofWriting
Summary: A birthday fic prequel to Written in Sand





	Seventeen and Counting

**Author's Note:**

> This takes place on Lance's seventeenth birthday, between the Kerberos mission and finding the Blue Lion.
> 
> As in WiS, dialogue in italics indicate they are speaking in Spanish. Since this takes place pre-episode 1 and from Lance's perspective, he is using he/him pronouns for Pidge.

            “SURPRISE!”

            Hunk’s hands whipped off of Lance’s eyes and he blinked against the sudden light. A grin spread across his face as his vision returned. The common room was done up in blue and silver streamers, a cheap and cheesy HAPPY BIRTHDAY sign hanging across the back wall. Across the low table sat a feast: tostones and arroz con pollo and chicharonnes and lomo ahumado and more, and in the center a beautiful flan, practically glowing under the light. Louisa was perched on the edge of the couch, grinning at him. Next to her was Cal, a rare smile breaking his face. He held a computer in his lap, facing out towards the door. Lance’s jaw dropped when he realized what was on the screen: both his parents and his three younger siblings crowded into the camera, waving at him. Even Pidge, the brand new member of Lance and Hunk’s simulator team, was sitting cross-legged in one of the armchairs on the corner.

            “Guys…” Lance said, overwhelmed. “ _Mamá, Papá, Beatriz, Max, Manuel, it’s so good to see you all_. Cal, you came all the way down from Skilton? And Hunk… Oh my God, all this food. You must have been cooking all day. When are you going to do your homework?”

            “Louisa made the flan,” Hunk said. “Everything else I’d made before. I propped up my engineering book beside the stove and read while I stirred,” he shrugged. Lance punched his arm.

            “You guys did _not_ have to do all this for me,” he said, wrapping an arm around Hunk’s ribs. Pidge blinked at him behind his glasses.

            “I didn’t do anything except show up,” he offered. “Hunk told me I had to be social on your birthday or else he’d steal my laptop.”

            “Where’d the Garrison dig you up?” Louisa muttered. She turned back to Lance, beaming. “We were happy to, little bro,” she told him. “Now dig in, before all of Hunk’s beautiful cooking gets cold.”

            “ _You’re seventeen, it’s an important birthday_ ,” his papá said, pulling Manuel onto his lap so they could fit better inside the frame of the camera. Lance served heaping piles onto his plate, with Pidge and Hunk following behind him. “ _We’re sorry we couldn’t make it up to be there in person, but next year we’re all coming for sure. It’s past time we came and saw what the Garrison is like_.”

            “ _Not like Lance hasn’t already given you the entire virtual tour_ ,” Louisa said, reaching for her own plate.

            “ _Iverson stopped me before I got to the simulator, though,_ ” Lance said around a mouthful of chicharonnes. “Hunk, these are divine. I know I say that about literally everything you cook but I mean it. Di-vine.” He turned back to the camera. “ _And I haven’t even explored all of the Garrison yet. There’s like twelve floors, three of which are basements._ ”

            “ _Yeah, but a lot of it is just offices and junk_ ,” Louisa shrugged. She swallowed a bite of chicken. “ _I got lost down in the basements once, it’s a maze of hallways and all the doors you open thinking they’re taking you back to the stairs are actually just janitor closets_.”

            “ _Lance, how’s your boyfriend?_ ” Beatriz asked. Lance went beet-red. The rest of his family raised their eyebrows.

            “ _Oh yes, please do tell us, little bro_ ,” Louisa said, false sweetness dripping off her voice. “ _How_ is _this… boyfriend?_ ”

            “ _HE’S NOT MY BOYFRIEND!_ ” Lance said, glaring at Beatriz. “ _I was_ complaining _about him._ ”

            “ _You described his hair to me for ten minutes_ ,” Beatriz said primly. “ _I know what a crush is. Alicia from school has one on me_.”

            “ _She does not_ ,” Max said, shoving at Beatriz.

            “ _Does too._ ” Beatriz returned the shove. “ _I just haven’t decided if I like her back yet_.” Cal was craning his head to look down over the top of the screen. He looked up at a choked noise from Lance, raising an eyebrow.

            “ _So who’s the boy with the pretty hair, Lance?_ ” Louisa asked.

            “ _It’s not_ pretty _,_ ” Lance growled, indignant. “ _He has a freaking mullet. It’s absurd. And he’s not here anymore, anyway_.” Beatriz stopped her wrestling match with Max, turning to look up at Lance.

            “ _What happened?_ ” she asked.

            “ _He got expelled_ ,” Lance said.

            “ _Wait, are you talking about_ Keith _?_ ” Louisa asked. “ _That guy who broke Lieutenant Meyers’ arm?_ ”

            “ _Do you know someone else in this school with a mullet?_ ” Lance asked. Hunk had glanced up from his plate at the name Keith, but Lance waved him back to his food, mouthing “I’ll explain later.”

            “ _Did he have a mullet? I didn’t notice_ ,” Louisa said, grinning impishly at Lance.

            “ _Yes, and it was the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen_ ,” Lance said firmly.

            “If we’re not going to talk in English, can I go?” Pidge asked. Lance jumped.

            “Sorry, Pidge. I got into an argument with my little sister about whether or not I have a boyfriend. She’s very convinced I do, but she’s wrong.” Pidge eyed him over his glasses, looking skeptical.

            “Pidge has a girlfriend,” Hunk mentioned. Pidge choked on his food.

            “I have a _what_?” he gasped. Hunk nodded.

            “I saw the picture clipped inside your notebook of you and your girlfriend.” Pidge stared uncomprehendingly. His glasses magnified his eyes impossibly large. His mouth moved soundlessly for a moment.

            “Me and…” Suddenly, comprehension dawned in his eyes. “You— That’s not— I’m—” He coughed, struggling with his words. “Stop looking at my stuff!” he yelled. Hunk put up one hand in surrender, his fork in the air, too busy chewing to defend himself.

            “Cal, you _have_ to get some of this food,” Louisa said. “Hunk is a miracle chef. The only person who cooks better is Mamá.”

            “You haven’t met _my_ mothers,” Hunk said. “They blow me out of the water.”

            “Then eating their food might actually make me die of joy,” Louisa said. She pulled the laptop out of Cal’s lap, shooing him towards the table with her free hand. “Eat,” she ordered. She set the laptop down on the table, pushing aside one of the empty dishes to make room. “And Lance, we have presents.” She reached down and pulled up a massive shopping bag sitting beside the couch. Cal finished spooning some of the lomo ahumado onto his plate and settled back onto the couch. “Here.” Louisa tossed Lance a squishy package in purple wrapping paper. “That one’s mine.” Lance grinned at her and tore the paper off, lifting up a jacket.

            “Oh, sweet!” he said. “Thank you, Louisa, I’ve been needing a new jacket. This one’s been getting pretty frayed at the edges.” He plucked a loose string at the cuff of the jacket he was wearing before sliding it off his arms. He pulled the new one on, standing up to check its length and struck a pose.

            “Glad you like it,” she said, grinning. “Here. This one’s from Cal.”

            Lance squealed when he ripped off the wrapping paper. “HEADPHONES!” he shouted. “YES. I will _always_ take new headphones.”

            “I bought the new Astrixa album for you as well, it should be on there,” Cal said. “Also, you were right, this is divine.” He pointed at his plate with his fork. “Hunk, if the engineering thing doesn’t work out, you officially have a standing invitation to be my personal chef.” Hunk chuckled.

            “Thank you,” he said. Lance noticed the faint blush of pride beneath his cheeks and winked at him. “Louisa, give him mine next.” Lance caught the small box out of the ear. He held it up to his ear curiously, trying to rattle it. It made no sound. He pulled off the yellow paper and opened the little cardboard jewelry box. Inside there were three slips of paper with IOU written on them.

            “Dinner,” Hunk explained. “Flip them over, there are terms and conditions on the back. I’ll cook you any dinner of your choosing so long as you give me a day’s notice. And so long as I can find the ingredients and figure out how to cook it.” Lance put his plate down. He walked over, gripped Hunk’s shoulders, and looked directly into his eyes.

            “You know the way to my heart better than anyone alive,” he said, completely serious. “If you ever ask me to marry you, the answer is yes.” Hunk laughed.

            “I’ll need to find a ring first. If I’m going to propose I’m going to do it properly,” he answered. Lance nodded, and then dropped his hands and turned back to Louisa.

            “What else is in your goodie bag?” he asked. She reached in and held out a green and black wrapped present.

            “I’ve been told to treat this one with care,” she said. Lance walked over to take it from her hands. Pidge’s name was scrawled in pen across the wrapping paper.

            “Aww, Pidge, you do care,” he said, placing a hand over his heart. Pidge folded his arms.

            “I’m an introvert, not an asshole,” he said.

            “I thought you said you didn’t do anything but show up?”

            “Hunk also insisted I show up with a present.” Lance grinned, mock saluting him, and tore off the wrapping paper. His jaw dropped.

            “Pidge, where did you—”

            “The headset is old,” he said in a rush. He didn’t quite look at Lance, his eyes fixed somewhere a bit lower and off to the side. “It’s not intended for this program, I had one lying around for video games that I didn’t use anymore. But it should work fine! I reprogrammed it so it’s compatible with the software. I know you’re always struggling to get extra hours in the simulator, what with Iverson freezing you out for some of the other students. I thought this might help.” He went abruptly silent, curling backward into the chair. Lance stared at him.

            “Pidge…” he said. Max interrupted him.

            “ _What is it, what is it_?” they demanded, bouncing up and down in their chair. “ _I can’t see_.”

            “ _It’s a specialized VR set for pilot training_ ,” he said, holding the box up to the webcam so his family could see. “ _It works basically like a personal simulator. It’s not as good as a full-size simulator like the one we train with here, it’s not quite that immersive, but it’s a step above a pilot simulation video game._ That was super thoughtful of you, Pidge. Thank… you.” Pidge shrugged, his eyes fixed on the ground.

            “Whatever,” he said. “You guys aren’t all bad to hang around with.” Lance stacked up a couple empty plates on the table and carefully placed the VR headset onto the open space.

            “Here’s a card from Beatriz, Max, and Manuel,” Louisa said, handing him an envelope. The card blasted pop music the instant he opened it and he jumped. A gift card slid out.

            “ _It’s a movie gift card but you’re ’sposed to buy space movies with it ’cause you’re at the Garrison,”_ Manuel said.

            “ _We wrote suggestions in the card_ ,” Max added proudly. Lance grinned at them.

            “ _I’m sure they’re excellent suggestions. We’ll all watch them together when I’m home for break, okay?_ ”

            “ _Okay,_ ” his siblings chorused.

            “Just Mamá and Papá’s left,” Louisa said, tossing him the last gift. Lance tore away the blue wrapping paper. His eyes widened.

            “ _Is this what I think it is?_ ” he asked.

            “ _We found it in the attic in Tía Gracia’s house. I have no idea how it ended up there_ ,” his papá said.

            “ _I thought we lost it years ago_ ,” Lance marveled. He ran his finger down the tortured, broken spine of the book and opened it carefully. His fingers felt oily and clumsy against the worn pages. Constellations spiraled across pages black with ink. He had grown up leafing through this book endlessly, his dad going over each page with him, teaching him how to spot the stars where they sat in the sky. He’d stolen this book off his dad’s library shelf so often he’d eventually just given it to him. It got lost in the shuffle of a move to a bigger house after Max was big enough to need their own bed.

            “ _It comes with a notebook. Since you’re a fighter class pilot now, you’ll have to make your own notes about the stars and how they look up close,_ ” his mamá said. Lance felt his eyes burning and looked up to see his parents beaming at him. He clasped the book and the blank notebook to his chest, a smile stretching his face until it hurt.

            “ _Thank you so much_ ,” he said. “ _I love you guys_.”

            “ _We love you too, honey_ ,” his mamá said.

            “So are we going to eat this flan, or what?” Pidge asked. Louisa held up a sharp kitchen knife.

            “Birthday boy gets to cut it,” she said.

**Author's Note:**

> Lemme just give you all the dramatic irony in those gifts
> 
> I couldn't NOT write Lance a birthday fic but I wasn't feeling super inspired so hope you enjoy this funky little prequel fic


End file.
